


Gnarled hearts and limbs

by No_maj



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Fantasy elements, child-eaters, children growing up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23101729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/No_maj/pseuds/No_maj
Summary: They are all but children. But youth and innocence are not counted on fingertips, but with salt, blood and loss.





	Gnarled hearts and limbs

**Author's Note:**

> An itch I couldn't scratch. Found some drafts from five years ago that were terrible and decided to rework it.

“Aren’t you afraid of the dark?”

  
Gnarled limbs and whisper sharp leaves lean in eagerly. The underbrush trembles in anticipation. Soft, like the underbelly of a hungry interloper, waiting for its next meal.

  
She is but a child and he is a child, though he pretends so. Slanted eyes peer at the girl sitting quietly in the grass. Another babe given to the night, changelings in her place and a pretty future unwillingly taken.

  
“I have never seen the dark until now,” she says in a slow intone, and maybe she is another child pretending she is not. “I have nothing to fear until I am made to understand fear.”

  
“Well spoken,” he says, and changes his mind. Young he may be, but undutiful he is not, and decides she is not for the Child-eater of the woods.

  
“Come,” he commands, and she obediently follows. Survival is a learned behaviour and young she may be, but unwise she is not. She follows alongside, tension curled in her spine, in the dip of her chin and in the quietness that follows her.

  
Their path takes them pass the Child-eater’s home. Unavoidable yes, but regrettable. Her spies have been following them since he’d found her, their yellow eyes glistening in the poisoned growth. The girl has come to her attention; prickly branches insidiously moving to caress her skin and draw her blood. He is glad to notice she is careful to avoid them. The Child-eater may be bound to their rules, but fight and rage and ploy she will, to take what she desires.

  
Soon they come across her manor, made sweeter by the strength the Child-eater gains with every child she drinks dry. The Child-eater herself is there in the guise of an old woman. She knits a long shawl with bone white needles and smiles at them as they come closer.

  
“You have come with my prize,” she calls across the porch. There is a gentleness to the way she says this, and the smell of hearth, warmth and spiced cookies wafts from the manor. He does not sway and stays planted at her threshold, motioning for the girl to do the same.

  
“No, dear grandmother. She will not be yours to eat from,” he says and holds onto the girl’s wrist. The girl tenses beside him but makes no other move.

  
The Child-eater puts her knitting down and looks at him with ancient rage. A rising wail comes from within the woods and the ground trembles with her power. Pressure begins to build in his ears. “Must I remind you of the rules that bind us? Give me the child and I shall demand no other payment.”

  
“I remember the rules, Child-eater,” and she flinches at her name. “There shall be more children to take from. More than I can claim for my own and more to fill your greed.”

  
“Then I shall take your blood as it has been decreed. Five years of your life I take from you.”

  
“And you shall have it,” he lifts his sleeve and offers his arm. Three puckered scars reveal themselves. The girl takes a quick breath and looks at him sharply. Five years is a heavy price, more so than he’d had to pay before, and a part of him wonders if she’s worth the price.

  
The Child-eater gets up from her chair and walks towards him, bone needle in hand. “You will die young,” she says. “And I will be glad of it when you do,” before she swiftly cuts a new line on his arm and droplets of blood swell to the surface. Her pupils begin to widen, ancient, lined orbs that reveal her age. He can smell her greed and lust, for the flesh and blood of children she desires, and sharp teeth grow from her mouth before she holds his arm in an iron grip and drinks her fill. He turns away and closes his eyes and dimly notices the girl staring at the Child-eater taking her payment. The stillness she holds herself hasn’t changed, but he imagines that the quietness that surrounds her takes shape until it resembles iron.

  
Good, a distant part of him thinks. Do you now understand fear in this world?

  
He can hear the Child-eater slurp and keen as more of his blood is taken, willingly given. He imagines her growing fat like a parasite, bloated but never sated no matter what he might give. He is only a child of thirteen, and worth only the number of years he can give.

  
Finally, she stops and lets go, and he turns to look at her, mouth stained crimson. “It is done,” she says sweetly, her breath smelling of metallic blood. Her guise has changed, now she looks resplendent and youthful, almost like what he’d imagine the girl beside him to become when she is older. He can tell it hasn’t escaped her notice either, her face ash pale.

  
He shoves his sleeve over the still dripping wound, trying to ignore the ghostly feel of the Child-eater’s mouth moving against his skin, mouth soft and teeth sharp. “Till next time, Child-eater,” and he turns his back on her house, hand still encircling the girl’s and walks towards the town, ignoring the way the pressure loosens from his ears and the way the woods rustle with a sated sigh.

  
As soon as their out of sight of the Child-eater’s home the girl snatches her hand away and walks beside him in silence, no acknowledgement of what they had encountered. He is grateful for it, too many times he feels guilt gnaw at his bones. Other children have thanked him for his sacrifice, but he feels it weigh him down, bogging him like murky water. I didn’t save you; he thinks, you were doomed from the moment you were given.

  
Soon they reach town and he leads her into cobbled streets, past the witches sect heavy with the smell of green and into the northern quarters. The place is prim, in a destitute way and he can hear murmurings behind closed doors. Even in a place of constant darkness, no one did dare step outside their brick walls at witching hour.

  
He finally stops in front of a house. Nothing differs it from the sameness of the others around it except for the incense left beside the door. The smell of bergamot encircles him, to ward spirits, he thinks. He pauses at the doorstep then looks at the girl. She looks at him guardedly with angular eyes, the same as his. A dark jacket swallows her frame and her dark hair which may have been plaited once, falls loose. He pities her a little. A changeling to take her place in the Day while she slumbers amongst the people of the night forevermore.

  
“I’m sorry for what has happened to you,” he says sincerely, “but there is nothing more I can give you but a life here.”

  
“A life or a chance at survival?”

  
He tips his head in acknowledgement, “it is whatever you make of it.”

  
She doesn’t cry nor waver. “Will I ever see my family again?”

  
“No,” he rasps. He has only saved three before her and each ask the same. It doesn’t lessen the pain. “You will never see them again, of that I’m certain. The boundaries between Night and Day are weak in some places, yes, but I’ve tethered you to this place. A life for a life. That is what the Child-eater demands from those she does not devour who leave her woods.”

  
Here she trembles, and eyes widen in fear, “So I’ll never be able to leave,” and she says it with such defeated resolution. She is quiet and still, especially for a young child like her, but he can feel that quietness harden and mould itself more.

  
“I can offer you forgetfulness to lessen the pain,” and here he brings out a boiled candy from his satchel. “Once it dissolves fully you will forget your life in the Day,” she steps back at this and he brings a hand up in peace, “it will make things easier for you.”

  
He places it in her palm, but she makes no move to accept it or throw it away. “It is your choice, but it is the last of what I can give you.”

  
She stands quietly and rubs her thumb against the candy, thoughtful. For some the weight of the decision is too much to bear, but he holds no judgement. “I understand,” she says simply and in a sudden rush, pops it in her mouth. She looks at him, face expressionless save for a tremble in her hand and he nods back curtly, satisfied.

  
“We have little time then. There is much for you to learn here but one thing to remember, never reveal your true name here. Names become control.”

  
She pauses and thinks, ‘then you can call me Ada.”

  
He rolls the name over his tongue, “Ada,” he likes the simplicity of the name, “that is a good one.”

  
“And what may I call you?” she asks.

  
“Langdon,” and with finality, turns around and knocks thrice on the wooden door. A woman opens the door on the third knock. Her figure is voluptuous but her face lined and shrewd. “Langdon?” she says in surprise.

  
He takes a deep breath, “Tante Wening, I have a child for you.”

  
He moves from the door frame to reveal the young child, with a quietness yielded like iron forged. “Her name is Ada.”

  
And in that breath, the girl’s life ended and began.


End file.
